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Saturday, December 27, 2008

"And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger."

Luke 2:16

After the Christmas Eve service at our Church we all slept great (at least I did!) and then we woke up early and went over to my Na-naw and Paw-paw's house. Most of Mommy's brothers and sisters were there, too! Paw-paw made an excellent breakfast for us, a few of the wonderful things he made were: his specialty, pancakes (he made up his own recipe), potato pancakes, blueberry pancakes, plain pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, Gritz, cinnamon rolls, etc. Everything was so yummy!

This is the dessert table for later that day.

These are the cinnamon buns! I just had to take a picture! ;)

After breakfast and clean-up, the family went to the dining room to read about Jesus' birth in Luke 2 and then to open presents. All the children, were on the floor, and the adults on chairs placed in different spots.

Listening intently.

Josiah

---Present Time!---(Daddy was photographer during present time)

Caleb got one of the series in Jonathan Park

Alexis & Seth also got a series too!

We had listened to the first 2 series and really liked them, so we were glad to get another!

Josiah - he sat in my (Kimber) lap.

A wreath on the window

We had the Christmas Nash Luncheon that day during lunch time. That's when most of our extended family came over for lunch and then, after lunch, they played Dirty Santa/ gift exchange. I went out and took some pictures of Uncle Sean, Uncle Chris and Joel (my mother's cousin son) as they were playing football after lunch. Dad was in back occupying the little guys.

By the way...the football they were throwing is in each picture - see if you can find it!

(If you can't, leave a comment and I'll tell you where the football is in an update on the post, later)

Uncle Chris just threw the ball and Joel is getting ready to catch it.

Joel throwing the football.

Uncle Chris throwing the ball to Uncle Sean who is ready to catch it.

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This was the flag on Na-naw and Paw-paw's tree. I thought the way that the sun was shining through it was neat, so I took a few pictures. If you look carefully you can see the sun rays, shining through the flag, in the shape of a cross.

Well, that's about it of our Christmas Day! Lunch was great with lots of yummy food and desserts. We helped clean up afterwards and then went home.

"And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city."

Luke 2:1 & 3

After we returned from Grandpa and Grandma's house we cleaned up the house, put the new presents away and re-organized a few things. Then we had a relaxing Tuesday with a wonderful rest that night. Wednesday morning we had our personal family Christmas!

All the years I remember doing Christmas with my family, we always did it Christmas Eve - at night. I always liked opening gifts at night because we had all the Christmas lights illuminating the room and we were all cozy in our jammies - there was just something captivating about it. (Maybe it was just staring at those beautiful lights and wondering what presents were in the "wiseman bags" ;)

But we wanted to try something different so we did it in the morning this time. I'll tell you about our day as I go along with the pictures!

Josiah helping with breakfast.

Alexis making the Drop Biscuits.

Daddy cooking his family-famous eggs!

Beautiful Lydia!

Relaxing before opening the gifts. (We ate breakfast and did devotions first) Those burlap sacks are what we call the wiseman bags.

Hannah - in her jammies - with some goodies in front of her.

Getting ready to open a wiseman bag. Lydia is sleeping and Mamma is temporary photographer! :)

Daddy got some peppermint patties! :)

Mommy and Josiah

Alexis

Josiah with some of the "goo" he got for Christmas. His "goo" changes from purple to pink. Eden got some "goo" too - hers glows in the dark.

Seth

Caleb

The presents Hannah and I received on the piano bench!

Alexis building a 3-D rhinocerous.

While we were opening gifts, one of our neighbors dropped by a kit for building a gingerbread house and as we were opening Christmas cards another neighbor brought by some cookies and pound cake!

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This is an idea of what everyone got for Christmas:

Books - lots of books - probably close to 10 books.

The Mr. Pipes series, Jungle Doctor series and books on eventful attacks/wars around the World War I & II era, plus a story of missionary heroism. Mommy and Daddy are always looking for books (we love to read) to increase our knowledge and help us become knowledgeable on different events in History. We probably get books every year - and finish them all by the next Christmas (maybe with having read them over a few times) just in time for more books!

Vitamin C Chewable Tablets (500 grams).

We love the flavored Vitamin C's and they're very good for you so why not get them for Christmas? :)

Fingernail Polish

Three different shades

Peppermint Patties

I don't know anyone in our family that doesn't like peppermint patties! Candy makes a great present!

Oatmeal Creme Pies

Yum!

Really Nice Winter Gloves

Daddy and Mommy used the gift certificate from Bass Pro (the one we got if we went to bluegreen resorts) to buy those for us! The only problem is that it has to get cold enough to use them - snow would help too! :)

Musical Instruments

Beat sticks (I don't know what you call them!), djembe-12" (Daddy's favorite - He used to play the percussion at our old church), mini Congo, shakers, and last but not least a temporary violin for Alexis! Alexis has had an interest in violins/flutes for a while so Daddy and Mommy borrowed one from Mrs. Robinson, Alexis' best-friend-forever, Jamie's, Mom. She has it for a year or two to figure out if she would like to pursue playing the violin.

Music Books

Twister

Twister is such a fun game, the only problem being that 8+ people can't play at once!

Candy Cane

Tripod for a Camera weighing no more than 1 1/2 lbs.

-- One of my (Kimber) favorite gifts!--

Hair Accessories

We constantly lose them, so we always need new ones!

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I don't remember what else we got, so that's good for now! Lydia did get a really cute pair of clothes! We relaxed a little bit more (Hannah, Caleb and I read our new books - Missionary Stories, The Story of D-Day and Jungle Doctor) and then prepared our Christmas dinner. Na-naw and Paw-paw (our grandparents) came over to celebrate with us. The table was set with a tablecloth and Mamma's fine china and glasses. We had sparkling grape juice for our drink to remind us of Jesus' sacrifice. I'll see if I can post the pictures soon. After dinner we went to church for the Christmas Eve service. All of us went in the service as a family, which we really liked!

And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

Luke 2:12

(This post is a series of 3-5 posts on Christmas. I'll try and post one every other day or so.)

We had a great Christmas with all of our family and friends! Since we have 3 families to celebrate Christmas with we have to figure out a way to be able to celebrate with all of them. Since we do Christmas on Christmas with my Paw-paw and Na-naw (mamma's parents) then we celebrate Christmas with our other grandparents a few days before. In this case, we stayed at their house Sunday, the 21st, thru Monday. We had a great time!

Like I said before (I think) I wasn't very active in my photography at their house but I did get a few pictures in! Here they are!

Seth, Josiah and Caleb in front of the Christmas tree!

My grandma

(That's Eden on the floor, beside my cousin's dog, Zepo)

Josiah eating a candy cane

Alexis getting a candy cane

Caleb and Seth playing a game

Zepo, our cousins dog.

The family in Christmas attire!

Lydia in her adorable dress!

Singing carols to beautiful music accompaniment by Hannah, Alexis and Caleb (playing the piano, recorder and guitar).

All 11 grandchildren on the stairs waiting to open stockings.From the very top, to the bottom: Eden, Cousin Amanda, Hannah, Cousin Diana, Kimber, Cousin Stephen, Alexis and Lydia, Caleb, Seth and Josiah

The Christmas Puzzle!

Every year we do a Christmas puzzle (a tradition we started a few years ago) and we finished it on Monday, with lots of help from the other members of the family.

Seth building things with his new present.

This is my favorite picture, so far, from all the pictures I've taken during Christmas-time:

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

UPDATE: Just today, again, we had 3 more neighbors bring us goodies. A gingerbread house, cream-filled brownie cookies, chocolate nut bread and Amish Bread are what they all brought!

Abundantly blessed,

Kimber

"Everyone helped his neighbor, And said to his brother, “ Be of good courage!”

Isaiah 41:6

We are blessed with the most wonderful neighbors! As I mentioned before, our family did our annual Christmas goodie pass-out the Saturday before Christmas. Well, just today, two of our neighbors came by and blessed us with some goodies! One of our neighbors, the Weimers, dropped by a whole bag of home-grown kiwi! And they were practically organic too! Mr. Weimer dropped off the kiwis earlier this morning. He has a big old beard and is so fun to talk to! Another one of our neighbors, the Townsends, dropped off some cookies, candy canes and pound cake while we were opening Christmas cards. And then when we got home last night there was 1 gift on the steps for us from another family (the Robinsons)! In that bag were some yummy peppermint-pinwheels and fruit! We are so very blessed to know all of our neighbors. The neighbors that are directly beside us, always offers their things up for us to use (including their pool!) and they were also the one who gave us the Clover seed for the many-animal-farm! Then the other neighbors beside us are always ready to come help whenever they can and love to have us come over and visit. I could rant about all the wonderful things our neighbors do but I think you get the idea - we're blessed!

Willingly Jesus',Kimber

P.S - Oh, well this isn't my last post before Christmas!!! We had a great time at our Grandparents house. I didn't take too many pictures though (it's hard to relax if you you're worried about missing out on a good picture! :).